CGI Helps Bell Canada Roll Out Services on Internet Time

Web companies run on caffeine and “Internet time”—that speedy pace made possible by global networks and e-commerce. In fact, some say that 1 year of Internet time equals 7 years of calendar time. So when Bell Canada wanted to roll out a new bundle of Internet services for business customers, it needed a billing system built: now! And CGI delivered a Web-enabled system that runs so smoothly it cut hours from the former processing time.

The Challenge
Under a longstanding contract for outsourcing, CGI does application development and support for Bell Canada. All told, CGI last year did over 200 projects large and small for various Bell Canada billing and customer care systems.

One of the most challenging projects was for KeyPak, a bundle of services aimed at small and medium-sized businesses. KeyPak includes long distance, voice mail, Internet access, and Yellow Pages, all rolled into one package that gives companies a single bill for all their telecommunication needs.

Before Bell could roll out this service, it needed to customize and Web-enable its billing system. The existing software lacked flexibility, and would have forced Customer Service Reps (CSRs) to rekey information into several different systems to administer the new all-inclusive bundle.

And with hungry competitors eyeing Bell’s customers, there wasn’t a second to waste. The question was, as always: “What can we offer before the competition?” In this market, the word “timeliness” translates as “emergency”, and projects that normally take 6 months are often completed in two. So there was a lot of pressure on CGI to deliver.

Another complication came from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), the government agency that oversees Bell’s operations. Before Bell could offer KeyPak, it needed permission from the CRTC. This meant developing the technical infrastructure and marketing campaigns to support the new service, and standing ready to launch it the minute the approval came through.

The Strategy
As soon as they heard about KeyPak in June, CGI put together a team of experts in Web development, including C++, Java and Perl programmers.

Already knowledgeable about Bell’s third-party billing system, this team mapped out three tools required to support KeyPak. WebCare was redesigned to let Bell’s CSRs look up customers, view and update account information, and set up new customers with KeyPak services. The Transfer Tool enabled CSRs to transfer existing customers from other services to KeyPak, and the Domain Tool let CSRs create and delete custom domain names for their business customers.

All three tools were designed to bring information together from several systems through a Web-based interface for speed and ease of use. To be ready in time, the development started even before Bell Canada got the CRTC’s go-ahead to offer the KeyPak bundle.

• Architecture: Web-enabled application accessed through WindowsNT workstations running Sun Solaris with Sybase database and CORBA objects
• Third-party application: Arbor/BP Billing and Customer Care from Kenan Systems
  (now Lucent Technologies Inc.)
  
• Users: 200+ Customer Service Reps in Ontario and Quebec, plus a significant number (300+) Customer Administrators
• Development Tools: mix of C, C++, Java and Perl

The Results
“CGI’s team was critical to the success of this project,” comments Michael Cole, Vice-president, Data Networks at Bell Canada. “There was a lot hanging on the outcome of this development, yet several objectives had to be clarified during production, which made the very aggressive delivery date even more stressful. CGI people provided top level expertise backed-up by very long work hours to deliver the right product on time in an extremely challenging context.”

One week after Bell received CRTC approval to offer KeyPak, CGI delivered WebCare. So the billing system was ready as soon as the first customer signed up. A month later, in mid-September, the team delivered the Transfer Tool, and followed up with the Domain Tool in November.

These Web-enabled tools replaced lots of repetitive keying and saved an immense amount of time in processing KeyPak orders. Tasks that used to take two hours were reduced to just a few minutes.

The CSRs who use the system were delighted. In fact, CGI received glowing e-mails saying they found the system exceeded their expectations. The bottom-line? CGI helped Bell Canada roll out an innovative service and protect its customer base by working on “Internet time.”